Ryan: Disaster if GOP health care reform fails

Speaker Paul Ryan expressed confidence Sunday that House Republicans’ Obamacare replacement could pass the Senate but also acknowledged the potential reality of the GOP’s failure to advance the legislation to the president’s desk: a 2018 bloodbath.

The House plan to repeal and replace Obamacare was met with opposition from fellow Republicans in Congress and powerful outside conservative groups. Nevertheless, two House panels marked up the legislation and advanced it through committee last week.

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“I believe we can get 51 votes out of the Senate,” Ryan told host John Dickerson on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Look, this is what the legislative process looks like. When you are going through a deliberative legislative process, not ramming and jamming things but going through all the committees, going through the entire process — people are going to try and negotiate.”

Ryan downplayed the opposition to the House bill as typical “negotiations and compromises.”

“That's how legislation works,” he said. “And what we're seeing and hearing is just that.”

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, however, warned earlier Sunday that the current version of the House bill wouldn’t pass the Senate, adding that House Republicans could lose their majority if they support a bill that couldn’t advance through the Senate.

In President Donald Trump’s word, according to CNN, Republicans would face a “bloodbath,” a description Ryan agreed with Sunday.

“I do believe that if we don't keep our word to the people who sent us here, yeah,” he said, there will be a bloodbath in 2018 for Republicans.

Ryan added: "The most important thing for a person like myself who runs for office and tells the people we're asking to hire us, 'This is what I'll do if I get elected.' And then if you don't do that, you're breaking your word."

Ryan credited Trump for being “tremendously helpful” in helping sell the Obamacare replacement plan but also conceded that the president’s unsubstantiated wiretapping allegation against former President Barack Obama the weekend before the House released its bill wasn’t helpful.